What could be easier? An envelope arrives at
your door in mid January and all you have to do is check the
pre-printed registration information, sign the form and add
2 cheques (fees and shirt deposit), and send it back to PO Box
85 by the set date. That’s how the vast majority of soccer
players in the Carleton Place Soccer Club are registered every
year. New members are invited by newspaper ads to come to 2
open registration events or advised to take a registration form
from the Club website and follow the steps. It really is that
easy.
Lots of work goes into making the process user
friendly. The form has been designed to make information and
fees gathering simple. A Club newsletter, packed full of information
regarding all aspects of the Club, is included in every mail-out
registration. The President carefully crafts the newsletter.
It includes information on soccer school, recreational soccer,
and competitive teams. Expected playing nights is included to
make it easier for families to plan their summer evenings. The
Club Soccer Day Camp is highlighted (257-1318) and the annual
invitation for volunteers is stressed. Finally there are names
and contact numbers of Board members and support staff. All
that information is crammed into only 4 pages of print.
Money! The budget is drawn up in the final
months of the year since the registration forms are printed
and mailed in early January. The concept of the budget is a
cost recovery/user pay model. The budget factors in the cost
and depreciation of uniforms, the ratio of players to balls,
payment for coach and referee development, and field, referee,
league and administrative costs. In addition there is a built
in per player fee of $10 to put toward field development projects
such as Beckwith Park and the watering systems and new field
at Notre Dame High School. The budgeting process insures that
the Club can pay its bills today and in the future with a reserve
for future growth. The Club spends your money carefully. Each
year a professional accountant checks the Club books to assure
that everything is in order.
Here’s what you don’t see. The
registrar prints registration forms and address labels and he
and his assistants stuff envelopes with forms and newsletters
and takes them to the post office. There are over 1000 members
and more than 700 envelopes to fill. Within a few days the assistant
registrar picks up the first of the returned forms from PO Box
85. The PO Box will be visited regularly, sometimes even twice
a day until the last day of regular registration. Once the late
registration date pops up, a $20 fee must be added to all returning
members’ fees. Now the PO box is checked daily. The Club
would rather have members register in the 6 week period from
mail out to mail back than collect $20 but short timelines for
tryouts, player registration with leagues, team formation, field
scheduling requirements, and the search for coaches must be
finalized in 6 weeks. Talk about pressure!
So what happens with your forms and cheques?
On a kitchen table a letter opener zips through batches of 20
envelopes at a sitting. Each form is checked for the correct
amount of fees (registration fee, shirt deposit and late fees)
and a member signature. The fee cheque and the shirt deposit
cheque are put in separate piles. Sometimes a form must be put
aside and a call will be made to the member. Quite often an
amount is wrong or a signature is missing. That registration
form is held up until all is correct and then the form can move
on with the other correctly completed forms to the registrar.
The registrar updates information and confirms
returning players. The Club keeps an up to date database on
players. This information is used to create team lists and contact
players for tryouts. The Registrar also updates the information
in the Ontario Soccer Association database for registration
and insurance purposes. The amount of time involved in the registrar’s
job is enormous. The Registrar’s position is a nerve center
job of the Club.
What happens to all those cheques? Player fee
cheques are handed on to the Treasurer, who stamps them, records
them on a deposit sheet and deposits them in a local bank. The
shirt deposit cheques are filed alphabetically in an accordion
file and held to the end of the year. Once the equipment manager
indicates that the player’s shirt has been returned then
that deposit cheque is destroyed. It sounds like a lot of extra
work and it is but the number of shirts not returned is now
minimal compared to the days before a shirt deposit system.
The volunteer form lands on the desk of the
Volunteer Coordinator and a listing is made of names and numbers
and area of interest and availability during the season. The
tasks involve coaching and managing, equipment or fieldwork,
seamstress, tournament and administrative helpers, and awards
day volunteers. Even though refereeing is a paid position the
place to indicate willingness to referee is there, too.
The jobs involved are not easy to do well but
the talented volunteers in the Club make it look that way.
